Talk:Grammatical aspect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Contents

[edit] Archive 1

I've moved all discussions that hadn't been touched since January 2006 to /Archive 1. This includes the following discussions:

  • aspect (linguistics)
  • disputed
  • Serbian example
  • Some observations on comments here
  • Know what you're doing with the English translations
  • perfective v perfect
  • Aspect in English and Slavic
  • English and Slavic
  • Aspect and Actionsart
  • Eat vs eat up
  • Semitic aspects
  • Slavic aspects - the second attempt
  • Aspect in Finnish
  • Text removed from article.

Ruakh 01:01, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Continuous vs. progressive

I am a student of linguistics trying to understand the labyrinth of tense and aspect, and i must say your articles have helped me a great deal. Thank you all! However, I have a question... I was talking to my professor today and he mentioned that the progressive and the continuous are not equivalent in motivation. I have to be honest and say that I do not understand what he meant by this. Would any of you perhaps be able to explain?

Thank you again! boram

In English, the continuous/progressive construct has two distinct uses: it can indicate that the action is taking place right now ("I'm playing tennis right now" vs. "I play tennis fairly often"), but it can also indicate that the action will take place soon ("I'm playing tennis tomorrow"). Perhaps your professor views one of these as "continuous" and the other as "progressive"? When you find out, please let us know! Ruakh 19:25, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
I indicated the difference between continuous and progressive aspects in Talk:Continuous aspect and proposed that the article be split because of the difference. Please feel free to comment on that talk page. —Umofomia 06:23, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

I would think that "progressive" could mean continuation toward some goal (making progress), and "continuous" could mean a more static or motivationless repetition. "We're getting better at our exciting activity every day". "The gear in the drab Orwellian factory is turning, as it always has been and always will be".

Now I'm depressed.

As to "I'm playing tennis tomorrow" I don't see this as a continuous/progressive aspect at all -- but rather as a mutant non-progressive, non-continuous, perfective future tense, that just happens to be using the same form as the present progressive/continuous aspect.

[edit] Structural Cleanup

Is there anyway that we could cleanup this article so that it has a more formal, easier-to-follow structure? I think that it would be best if we could structure the article so that the aspects of different language groupings (Semitic; Finno-Urgic; Germanic; Slavic, etc.) are discussed separately without most of the confusing comparisons and references that we currently have. I am limited in my knowledge (English, Ancient Greek, and only small amounts of Latin and Bulgarian), but I would be willing to work with someone on those sections if this seems like a viable option. --KraDakar 00:04, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, the point of the comparisons is so that anyone who might know those other languages will be able to make a comparison: often those comparisons don't align exactly in every case, but sometimes they do. For instance, the Greek "chi", according to a chart I have on the Greek Alphabet, has the sound of the German "ch". Unfortunately I don't know German. The examples are for those that just might, however, know something about them. Therefore to separate them would not only be an aweful idea, but would ruin the point of the comparisons!
Language can be quite complex to hammer-out into its rules and descriptors, so it's not surprising that you get confused. It's good to have at least some knowledge of one or more languages which might give you some insight into reading articles like these. The comparisons themselves are what help give people access to understanding the other languages!Infinitelink 05:15, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Hear hear. Just what I'm here to discuss.

But in a different way. I think the article is currently too specific about specific languages, and too focused on English.

It should start out with more of a general discussion on, and clarification of, the meaning of this very difficult concept (even for linguists) of aspect, in contrast to other types of verb distinction.

It should go on to discuss the origins of our concept of aspect, as found in (traditional analyses of) Classical Greek and Latin, and then how these concepts have been expanded to a whole broad array of aspect types. Maybe it should even ask -- has this really gone too far? Is the notion of defining "aspect" being applied to what are in some situations simply general "meaning"? What is, and what should be the criteria for an "aspect" - structural, conceptual, functional?

An inventory of aspect types should then be presented -- ideally grouped into related types, with a discussion of overlapping/conflicting definitions and/or terminology and any scholarly disputes -- with explanations, and examples as best as possible in English.

Then there should be a section which takes a few examples of languages which use aspect in some important way (for that language), which is representative of many languages, or distinct and unusual -- explicating how aspect is important for them. Then a mention of some languages where aspect is not signicant, in varying ways. The point of this is describing the ways aspect can be used and be important in language -- not to teach details about particular languages.

Then a section which gives us links to articles which have more complete descriptions of aspect for particular languages, such as Russian. These linked articles can be the general existing article on a particular language if it has some aspect content, or -- for a language where there is much in-depth discussion to had on the subject, such as Ancient Greek -- your excitingly clear and readable new article "Aspect in Ancient Greek" (also to be linked of course from the general Greek language article).

Now get to work -- or, be getting to work with the intent of magnificently completing the action within a specifically conceived-of time frame!

[edit] Arabic Aspect

The author seems to say arabic has "static" and "dynamic" aspect but these are not defined. Arabic aspect is problematic, because many grammars refer to the two conjugation paradigms as either "perfect" and "imperfect" or "past" and "present." The independence of perfective and imperfective aspects is not complete in Arabic as in slavic languages. The single so-called imperfect form can be interpreted just as present tense as well, and the single so-called perfect form can be interpreted as an aorist past. Further tensing is done with forms of the verb to be (كان) to say things like "I used to go" or " I will have done." In written Arabic, modals can be the most problematic. For example, to my knowledge, "كنت أريد" and "آردت" are essentially stylistic variants both meaning "I wanted." However, aspectual distinction between the two forms becomes important, for example, with "know" (عرف). The difference between "كنت أعرف" and "عرفت" is similar to the usage distribution of "sabía" and "supe" ("I knew/used to know" and "I found out") in Spanish. Interestingly, in my experience with Jordanian colloquial, the tensing كنت on the former is dropped often in speech, using the conjugated form as a simple imperfective with context words indicating tense. I would like to know what is meant by the distinction "static" vs. "dynamic." - Mike Rieger

I don't know Arabic, but my understanding from the article is that dynamic aspect marks a change, whereas static aspect indicates a continuing action. For example, whereas in English "the window was broken" can have either a dynamic sense — "I heard a crashing sound when the window was broken" — or a static one — "the door was locked, but the window was broken, so we had no difficulty getting in", Arabic would presumably distinguish these. (Granted, English can explicitly mark the dynamic case by using "was being" instead of simply "was", but this is optional.) Ruakh 18:02, 21 September 2006 (UTC)
That may be, but if in this case the example forms are labeled incorrectly. "Rakiba" is not a continuous form, for example. The reason I bring this up, is because I have never heard the terms "dynamic" or "static" used in discussion of Arabic aspectual distinctions. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Marieger (talk • contribs) .
Please be bold about making improvements, especially fixing errors.. Ruakh 03:59, 25 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bibliography

I am not a fan of long bibliographies, but I think we should mention a few influential books. I will start wih one, and a link to my review. Johncmullen1960 11:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Frequentative and telic/atelic aspects in Slavic languages

68.91.95.49 edited the first paragraph of #Aspect in Slavic languages, adding the part in bold:

In Slavic languages there is only one type of aspectual opposition which forms two grammatical aspects: perfective and imperfective (in contrast with English which has two aspectual oppositions: perfect vs. neutral and progressive vs. nonprogressive) (incorrect - Slavic languages also have the frequentative aspect, and traces of telicity). The aspectual distinctions exist on the lexical level - there is no unique method to form a perfective verb from a given imperfective one (or conversely).

I've reverted it, since it doesn't really fit the tone of a wiki (wikis are editable so people can fix errors, not point them out), but I don't know how to fix the section. Does anyone here know what (s)he's talking about? Is (s)he correct?

—RuakhTALK 01:30, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it's true. In Czech, it is IMO more than just traces of telicity. Za- preposition is telicity, I think. (correct me if I'm wrong)

some examples:

střelit - to shoot

zastřelit - to shoot to death

kopat - to dig

zakopat - to bury (Just in the meaning "to place in the ground". It is not used when talking about corpses, except when it's done by a murderer)

bít - to beat

zabít - to kill

jít - to go

zajít - to go somewhere (probably with some purpose) and go back

jet - to ride/to go by (vehicle)

zajet - as above example with jít, or (coloquial/dialectal) to kill by vehicle

malovat - to paint

zamalovat - to cover by paint

pálit - to burn

zapálit - to set fire

žít - to live

zažít - to experience

lít - to pour

zalít - I don't know an english word for this. You put something into a pot. Then you pour enough water into the pot to make that something submerged. Then you zalil that something by water. It also means to water. (plants)

I would add that it's not true that perfect/imperfect is on the lexical level. It is true that both are considered separate words, (possibly because infinitive has aspects too) but it is possible to change aspect, neologisms and loanwords usually distinguish aspects just like native words. Another thing, 'to become' has both aspects in Czech - 'stát se' (perfective) 'stávat se' (imperfective). It seems that the section is based only on one Slavic language and mentions facts specific for this language.

[edit] Aspect in Finnic languages

I don't speak Finnish or Estonian, so don't feel comfortable editing this section, but it seems that the difference between the two examples given would be better paraphrased by "I shot the bear" / "I shot AT the bear" (rather than "towards") where the former clearly indicates the bear was hit, whereas the latter statement remains open to interpretation and may even imply the contrary. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Henkeldg (talk • contribs) 22:55, 15 August 2007 (UTC).

That's a good point. I don't speak any Finnic languages, either, but I think this is a case where what's needed is actually a native English speaker. :-)   —RuakhTALK 23:42, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] What's an action nominal?

"Yaska applies the same distinction also for between a verb and an action nominal."

I'd like to change that to "Yaska also applies the distinction to verbs and action nominals," but I have no idea what an action nominal is!

At first glance, I'd consider "action" to be a noun and "nominal" to be an adjective, and conclude that "action nominal" is a borrowing from French, the plural of which might be "actions nominals."

But in contrast with "verbs," perhaps some sort of noun is indicated, such as one involving activity -- a "noun of action"? An active noun? A noun expressing an act?

Perceiving a bit deeper, I contrast completed actions with those in progress, and suspect it may be some sort of Zen-like incompletion, an action suspended in time, irrespective of holistic totality, to which Yaska extended his conception of aspect. Could "swimming" be an action nominal?

Knowing little about grammar except that it ought to come naturally, but doesn't, I'll leave it to the experts, but still, I wish somebody would do something about that sentence. Unfree (talk) 02:11, 18 December 2007 (UTC)